EPS Christmas Lecture 2020: Why Laughter is Funny
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EPS Christmas Lecture 2020: Why Laughter is Funny
Thu, 17/12/2020 - 15:00
Location:
Speaker:
Prof. Sophie Scott
Affiliation:
University College London
Synopsis:
Laughter is a very common non-verbal expression of emotion. Often associated with amusement and humour, laughter is more commonly produced for purely social and communicative reasons; within communicative settings it can be used in highly complex and nuanced ways. In this talk I will explore the evolution, acoustic and neural origins of laughter, and explore some of the complexities of its use in interactions.
Biography:
Prof Sophie Scott is the Director of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL, where she is also group leader for the Speech Communication Lab. She is an internationally recognised researcher into the neurobiology of human vocal perception and production. Her work addresses both verbal and non-verbal aspects of vocal communication, from sound to social meaning, and from speech to laughter. She has published both empirical and theoretical papers on these topics. She was the 2017 Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer.